Model Based Simulation and Evaluation of Mobile and Web 2.0 Applications for Users with Special Needs

Abstract

The accessibility of modern Web 2.0 applications for people with disabilities continues to be a problem [1,2,3]. Recent research has shown that even the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 only cover half of the accessibility problems that users encounter when interacting with those kind of web applications [4].

Those guidelines do not consider the fact that people with disabilities use special interaction patterns when interacting with web applications [5]. Analysing these interaction patterns and integrating them into the development process of web applications by providing tool support seems promising to help improving the accessibility of those web applications and also to reduce the time and costs for user trials [6,7].

The purpose of this thesis is to simulate interaction patterns of people with disabilities and to analyse how those interaction patterns have effects on the time and efficiency to complete given tasks in web applications. It will also analyse how effective this simulation will be in helping to design web applications, both accessible and usable.

To achieve this, a model based simulation framework will be designed that take into account different models involved in the interaction of users with web applications. A software tool will be developed that implements these models and the simulation.

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